Nothing Will Change Until We Start to See Ourselves in the Victims of Every Attack

It can't just be Manchester and London. We need to empathize with Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians.

By
Elliot Ackerman

Jun 8, 2017

Design by KEPT2

Within a period of 24 hours this past week, a series of bombings in Baghdad and Kabul killed in excess of 100 people. The bombing in Baghdad, which targeted an ice cream parlor in Karrada, a shopping district along a peninsula that juts into the Tigris River, took place in the evening, just as families were breaking their Ramadan fast. Like the previous week's bombing in Manchester, the Islamic State succeeded in killing a number of children.

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Watching video of the blast's aftermath, I recognized the ice cream parlor. I had wandered by it last October when I was in Baghdad on assignment for Esquire. That night, I'd come across a gutted three-story shopping center where the Islamic State had detonated a truck bomb in July, killing 323 people in the deadliest single attack since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Portraits of the victims hung on a makeshift fence around the shopping center.

As I stood at the memorial, a cluster of Iraqis approached me. With wagging index fingers, they wanted to make certain that as an American I understood what had happened, that I didn't mistake the gutted building for a fire, a poorly maintained construction site, or anything other than what it was. After a few minutes of conversation, when it came up that I was a veteran—I served as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2011—an old man in the group told me he was glad that I had come back, and that the U.S. and Iraq shared a special relationship.

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In the days after the Islamic State's attacks in Manchester and now London, the phrase "special relationship" seems particularly apt. The outpouring of sympathies that have flowed across the Atlantic painted a portrait of two nations that have been deeply connected—both politically and emotionally—ever since we banded together to defeat fascism and communism, the great scourges of the twentieth century.

The United States is again trying to counter an ideology, but our critical partner is not solely Great Britain. We must partner with those with whom we've failed to craft any special relationship at all. American soldiers, Afghan soldiers, and Iraqi soldiers have been fighting and dying alongside one another for the better part of two decades, but when a bomb goes off in a Middle Eastern market, most Americans see nothing of themselves in the carnage. As for our political leaders, too many respond by casting our regional partners as culpable. Look no further than President Trump's response to the London attack this past Saturday. There was no call for solidarity with those on the frontlines against the Islamic State, but rather a call from the president to codify a national prejudice.

When a bomb goes off in a Middle Eastern market, most Americans see nothing of themselves in the carnage.

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Many Americans were quick to mourn the victims of London and Manchester, but why don't we feel the same for the children massacred last Wednesday as they ate ice cream on a summer night in Baghdad?

Some might argue that racial and religious disparities create an insurmountable rift, but such arguments don't take into account the deep national bonds we've managed to develop with countries like Japan and South Korea, whose cultures are as different from ours as any Middle Eastern country. If an attack like those in Baghdad or Kabul occurred in Seoul or Tokyo, our national response would be more akin to what we've seen with the UK.

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Until we begin looking at Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians, as our country's future strategic partners—instead of merely as the brutal perpetrators of violence—we will never feel solidarity with the victims of a Baghdad or a Kabul. Also, we will never convince our allies in the region that we have their long-term interests at heart and so will be consigned to stumble along our path of ceaseless war, where our support is often leveraged by one nation against another in regional disputes. Trump's support of Saudi Arabia's move to isolate its smaller neighbor, Qatar, which is a major American military partner, is just the latest incident. A "special relationship" between nations is more than just a nice pairing of words, it is the underpinning upon which regional stability can be built.

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That night in Karrada, wandering among the photographs, the one thing most of the victims had in common was their youth and the American style of clothing they wore: baseball hats and Nike shirts. The old man I had met directed me to one of the photographs on the memorial. It showed a young man, maybe 20 years old. He said the victim's name, and I silently nodded. He repeated himself, and again I nodded, but the old man seemed disappointed. I couldn't be certain, but I suspected he wanted to hear me, an American, speak the name. I tried, but didn't quite pronounce it correctly. The old man didn't seem to mind. He rested his hand on my shoulder. It seemed enough that someone from so far away had come to pay respect to his dead.

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